1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to obtaining information across a network, and more specifically to reducing the transmission time of such information by adapting the size of the information to the speed of a network connection.
2. Description of the Related Art
In today's electronic and Internet environment, the speed used while accessing and transmitting data over the Internet is a major success factor for an Internet company attempting to conduct income-generating commerce over the Internet. Specifically, with the popularity of the world wide web and the Internet, the real-time taken to access a web site and conduct commerce with that site must be within a reasonable time-frame (e.g., under 8 seconds per web page request). Additionally, a web site engaging in income-generating commerce over the Internet may lose customers if that web site's real-time access exceeds the reasonable time-frame. Such an income loss may occur due to the fact that the customer, engaging in commerce with that web site, will become impatient with the slow access, cancel the transaction and select another competitive web site that offers the same type of commerce at a faster speed.
Most web sites supplying electronic commerce that achieve less than a reasonable time-frame for a web transaction find it difficult to achieve a reasonable time-frame. When the need for obtaining a reasonable time-frame is added to the complexity of varying Internet and network speeds feeding to a web site, produced by various numbers of Internet Service Providers (ISP's), it is almost impossible to create an electronic commerce web site with just the right amount of information that will guarantee everyone a reasonable timeframe for real-time access.